Shadowrun Returns Review

Tabletop-gaming classic Shadowrun was released to a subdued audience of pen-and-paper die-hards in 1989, and quickly carved out a niche for itself by fusing fantasy with cyberpunk in a dystopian vision of the future that was all its own. More than 20 years later, Shadowrun Returns (developed by a team led by Shadowrun creator Jordan Weisman) borrows the 2D isometric view from an early '90s Super Nintendo adaptation, but it most embodies the open-ended heart of tabletop gaming. It's really about the democracy of storytelling.

Shadowrun Returns acts more like a platform for adventures than a single, specific game, although the accepted fiction of the Shadowrun universe is still at play in canonical entries like the included episode, The Dead Man's Switch. This is as close as Shadowrun Returns gets to a true, developer-defined Shadowrun experience, as it follows the eight-hour trajectory of the player character’s revenge quest across a near-future cyberpunk Seattle filthy with gangs, cults, and the corporations that support them.

You'll split your time between putzing around crime scenes, interrogating detectives and business-elves, stocking up back at the sub-bar compound, and going on raids that inch the characters closer to the gruesome truth behind the untimely end of the protagonist's old friend, Sam Watts. Combat follows what has become an accepted cadence in tactical turn-based RPGs, with players clicking on characters and telling them where to move and shoot, and play is dominated by class choices. Assassins will sneak, technomancers will hack, and street samurai will slice and shoot. It's missing a much-needed party system — you can hire other runners to accompany you on missions, but they can't be customized and don't really play a role in the story — but individual player progression options are robust and meaningful.

A few amateur strokes drag things down, however. The occasional graphical and movement glitches — including animation hangs or misplaced bullet tracings — are more charming than upsetting, but the inept save system can lead to real frustration. Instead of allowing players to manually save, the game auto-saves at the beginning of each new stage, which often isn't enough. Pair that with the frequent walls of text that comprise the bulk of character interactions, and The Dead Man’s Switch can bog down even committed gamers, never mind series newcomers.

Developer Harebrained Schemes has more to offer than its premade episode, though. The real prize in this cereal box is the box itself: that is, the engine and assets that the game runs on, which can be easily manipulated in the scenario editor and then uploaded to SteamWorks to share with the community. Most builds as of this writing are pre-alpha and not particularly worthwhile, but the potential energy of this system taps into the same hive-mind approach as Bethesda's successful Creation Kit and Valve's Source editor. When the "professionally developed" content is as sparse as it is here, player-created narratives gain the emphasis.

The bottom line. The included campaign isn't great, but empowering players with storytelling tools is the heart of tabletop gaming, and that's where Shadowrun Returns excels.